Trespasser's lead programmer, Seamus Blackley, is a true physicsguru. His work on the original Flight Unlimited from Looking glass washeralded as revolutionary with perfect flight modeling and amazingvisuals. Now he's looking to carry his experience into the first-personaction genre with Trespasser, the latest title from DreamworksInteractive. Trespasser is set shortly after the events that occurred in theJurassic Park sequel The Lost Wold, with the player, (a girl calledJane, voiced by Minnie Driver) stuck on the menacinv Site B. Your onlygoal is to get the hell off the island by any means necessary. The badnews is that you don't have any weapons--but the good news is that youcan do just about anything in the world of Trespasser that you could doin real life: break barrels, float wooden objects, stack crates, etc.,giving you dozens of ways to attack each puzzle you encounter. Trespasser contains no indivdual game 'levels'--it's all one giant,continuous 3d world, with dozens of acres of realistically modeledjungle terrain. And you're not alone because herds of dinos thatrealistcally flock, attack, and hold their distance will be sharingspace with you. The AI system adds a twinge of raw, terrifyingunpredictability--a raptor that materializes 10 feet in front of you maynot be hungryat all...or it may be poised to strike. And yes, the T-Rexis in there, and she's rarely ina good mood. Trespasser's aim is to play the way the player wants it to--you cango in guns-a-blazin', or you can trick the dinos with phsics-basedtraps. It'll be intersting to see if the game can feature such amazingcomplexity while actually still being fun to play--but...

Another great example of the detail that went into making Trespasser asbelievable as possible would have to be your little utility belt. When you lookdown, you will actually see your utility belt. While this may not be somethingnew or totally ground breaking, it sure is cool to see certain knick-knacks likethat in the game which attribute to a greater sense of 'Being there.'

>Rockin' your world

For a long time now, there have been no huge advances, or execution, of superbaudio. Granted, there is now 3D Audio, and while it's very cool, that won't fixa game with bad audio. The last game I remember where I actually took notice tothe Audio was C&C (original). The guys were screaming all while 'Hells March'blasted through my speakers. But, sadly, with most games, audio will be thefirst to experience cutbacks and ultimately only achieve mediocre quality.

With Trespasser, however, you will definitely notice the sound FX and audio.Why? Well, that's because it's based on that buzzword you have heard numeroustimes over in this preview so far - that's right, physics. No, that's not atypo, and yes, I do know what I am talking about. The audio in this game isindeed physics based.

The development team for Trespasser sat down and pondered, why in the world doyou hear the same exact sounds when you use the same items in differentconditions. Go ahead, try this one out. Let's say you tap your monitor with abat. It makes a soft 'Tink', doesn't it? Well, would the same sound be heard ifyou beat the hell out of it with the bat? Of course not. So why do they make thesame noise in other games? Because other games aren't based on the physicsengine!

Another example of the physics-based sound, you see a Velociraptor at thebottom of a hill. You quickly dislodge the boulder next to you with your crowbarand send it rolling down at the dinosaur, crushing him. What do you hear? In anyother game you might hear a thump and a default scream. What do you hear inTrespasser? The crowbar making contact with the rock, the rock slowly rollingdown the hill, gaining speed as it moves faster, the rock hitting the raptor,the raptor's bones breaking, and finally the raptor screaming for help.

Basically, when you do something in the world, it will register with thephysics engine. Then the physics engine tells the sound what you did, and thesound makes a whole bunch of calculations, and then spits out the appropriateplayback. The sound is played based on thickness, type, and other properties ofwhatever you interacted with in true, 3D space. "...You will have to struggle tohear the same sound twice."

>Conclusion

DreamWorks has really out done themselves with this one. It is definitely thegame to look for when it comes out this holiday season. It has practicallyeverything a gamer could want, and some pretty cool, if not revolutionary,interactive features. A physics engine to die for, AI and gameplay unsurpassedby anything, and what looks to be extraordinary audio, all wrapped up nice andneat in a little package called Trespasser.

The game will be machine-intensive, however. And right now they are saying thatit will probably run fine on a system with 64 Megs of RAM, a P200, and a solid3D Card. That's only at this current stage in development though, and they stillhave a lot of code tweaking and refining to do before the final version hits theshelves.

Bottom line is this. When Trespasser comes out, you had better hope you have abox of diapers ready, because you're going to need them...

-Tim Krupinski

>http://www.3dgaming.net/features/trespasser/preview.shtml

Link to Internet Archive copy (already seen it before, several screenshots, also a link to an Interview with Seamus Blackley)

I'm huddled over a monitor with Austin Grossman, lead designer of _DreamWorks Interactive's_ Trespasser. He's matter-of-factly showing me one of the game's levels in which the lead character, Anne, is navigating a maze of powered-down, unlocked dinosaur pens. Suddenly, a shrieking Raptor shoves one of the pen doors open with its nose and surges out into the corridor.

"Cool!" Grossman cries. "I've never seen them do that--I've never seen one of them come through the door like that!"

Seamus Blackley, the game's producer and physics guru, says he has experienced similar moments in which his own engine surprised and delighted him. "That kind of 'stupid grin' immersive joy is the heart of Trespasser and my design philosophy," explains Blackley.

It seems as if there is no limit to the way in which Tresspasser's components can interact. Dinosaurs, for example, have no scripted behavior or animations. Rather, they are assigned a handful of behaviors from a list of 40 or so actions, including "bite," "look," "charge," or "howl." These behaviors are further affected by a list of changing stimuli, such as fear, hunger, fatigue, and curiosity. Dinosaurs are even defined by their bulk, which determines whether they can go around certain objects or plow right through them. Sophisticated stuff...

Darwin's theories of evolution seem to be at work in this unique action-adventure game--that is, Trespasser has evolved dramatically since Gamecenter's _first sneak peek_ last December. Read on for a complete look at how this prehistoric meat eater is shaping up en route to its savage release on the gaming public this fall.

Trespasser's dinosaurs are like sentient creatures in all their unpredictable glory. Each of the seven species in the game has a library of up to 50 sounds, which are associated with certain AI behaviors. Grossman shows me a fight between a Raptor and a Triceratops, both creatures circling and charging each other in a dance of feints and thrusts, accompanied by a veritable symphony of shrieks, growls, snorts, and whimpers.

The dinosaurs are built out of skeletons with bump-mapped skins stretched over them. The bump mapping, an effect that gives textures the illusion of height and enhances the game's lighting, renders the creatures' skin a lustrous, shimmering quality that you can almost feel. Amazingly, the artists don't do any animations for the dinosaurs; rather, the engine's AI and physics dictate the movements that the artists would normally program into the game.

Artist Kyle McKisic demonstrates how this works by using his cursor to lift a T-Rex by the scruff of the neck as if it were a kitten. "You can pick him up and drop him and he just deals," McKisic says. Sure enough, the behemoth kicks his rear legs, scrambling to hold himself up as his bulk hits the ground.

The game's sound is also built using the same philosophy of interacting components. Brady Bell, the game's sound man, demonstrates "real-time Foley." Although it sounds like a buzzword, it is in fact a simple concept for creating sound. Every object and surface in the game is given a property, such as "dirt," "wood," "concrete," "flesh," and "bullet." When two such objects collide, a recorded sample is played, with the volume and pitch determined by the force of the collision. There is even a separate sound library for objects sliding against each other.

Bell gives an example of this by playing several sounds: a board smacked against an oil drum, a girder pushed along a concrete wall, and a bullet hitting a dinosaur. Anne's footsteps also use the real-time Foley: a foot model collides with whatever surface Anne is on, at whatever rate she's moving.

The setup makes so much sense that I can't help but ask why other games haven't taken the same approach. "It's the brainchild of a bunch of really smart engineers," Bell says. "It's really hard. It takes a lot of time. It also takes a lot of the processor's time and it's memory intensive."

The interface in Trespasser is designed to provide an unobstructed view of the game world. At this point, the screen has no numbers or information; no overhead maps; and no inventory screens. Anne can hold only one object at a time; whether she's carrying a keycard, a crate, or a shotgun, she'll have to leave it on the ground to pick up something else. On one hand, this will no doubt lead to some grumbling among gamers, who will want to know why Anne can't tuck a pistol or a keycard in her waistband. On the other hand, it significantly streamlines the gameplay.

"The interface starts from a base of Quake, with the added effect of the arm," says Grossman. The basic mouse-look interface will be familiar enough to gamers. Hold down the left button, though, and Anne's arm reaches out. While the button is held down, the mouse moves her arm around the screen; if it moves to a screen edge, the view scrolls. Touch Anne's arm to something and click the right button to pick it up. Click the right button again to drop it. If you have something usable in your hand (like a gun), hit the space bar to activate it.

Grossman proudly shows that there are no overlays or separate screens in the game. There is no health bar, because Anne can take only minimal damage before dying, anyway. There's a keypad puzzle in which you reach out and press the actual keys rather than zooming in on a separate screen. You aim by peering down the sights of the gun. As Anne fires her weapons, she counts aloud the number of rounds remaining.

Some clues are rolled into the environment. For instance, scientists leave notes to each other on blackboards before the labs are abandoned. In a nod to the movie *War Games,* a password is written on the extension of an office desk. Additional background and clues are provided by Richard Attenborough's mellifluous narration of Dr. Hammond's memoirs. Although it may not make it into the final product, among Sir Attenborough's recordings was a heartbreaking recital of Percy Bysshe Shelley's "Ozymandias"--a fitting postscript to Dr. Hammond's Jurassic Park if ever there was one.

Grossman describes Trespasser as an action game with enough puzzle elements to also make it an adventure game. "But we're working really hard not to make any kinds of puzzles that you can solve by chance or brute force or just by searching," Grossman explains. "We try not to have too much stuff based on coordination. You should be able to think about a situation and use tools to solve it. It's all about using physics, the rules of this physical world, to accomplish goals."

One such puzzle involves dumping over a rickety trailer by rocking it from within. Another stumper requires pushing a board across a gap, walking over it, and then pulling the board behind you to cross another gap. A particularly insidious puzzle, which fits in perfectly with the game's emphasis on physics, requires you to actually use a fully functional scale to compare the weight of some electronic components.

"I want the puzzles to be deep but not arbitrary," Grossman says. "The game world is full of objects and you can use them, but no object has a special purpose. The idea is that every object has its own properties and you figure out what to do with it."

Even more so than the game's mighty dinosaurs, the most mundane objects betray the power of Trespasser's real-world physics. There's something almost hyperreal about the way objects interact, whether you're shooting the leg out from under a table, clacking a gun along the iron bars on a window, or watching a T-Rex nose through a pile of crates.

Seeing a game world reflect The Way Things Work is almost more spectacular than the dinosaurs themselves. It opens up endless possibilities. Grossman compares their approach to Nethack, a venerable RPG that uses only ASCII characters: "One of the things I loved about Nethack was that it was a complicated world with consistent rules. There was always a different way to solve puzzles." In Nethack, you could cast a spell of water-walking to cross a river, you could freeze it with a wand of cold, or you could dig through from above to enter the level from the other side. Such depth of interaction is what Grossman hopes to replicate in Trespasser.

This wide-open approach does have its limitations. For example, the game lacks fire and explosions, and there are no shovels (you can be sure some gamers would try to dig to China) or chisels (otherwise players might be tempted to spend hours trying to break through walls). You also cannot fill a bucket with water and make 100 trips to try and flood a room. "There are a lot of things we don't have," Blackley admits. "We only have things that absolutely, 100 percent of the time, without exception, work exactly as they should with everything else."

The open-ended nature of Trespasser's game engine is forcing Blackley to decide what to leave *out* of the game. "The engine enables so many different things, but it's a question of what's fun. There are a lot of puzzles that are just too hard, puzzles that are too realistic, but they're not fun. Realism in the name of fun is what this is about."

It won't be long before gamers get a chance to decide if Blackley made the right trade-offs. Will the game be so much fun that you won't mind that Anne can hold only one object at a time? Will the action be so intense that you'll forget all about the absence of such action-game staples as fire and explosions? We'll find out this fall.

Of all the titles being displayed at E3, Trespasser was perhaps the one I mostlonged to see. This, after seeing it only a few weeks ago at DreamworksHollywood offices. Why the excitement? Well, what other title has the ability tocompletely ruin my love for Quake II as much as Trespasser did. The same day Ioriginally saw this title was the last day I played Quake II. With it's amazingexterior locations and truly unbelievable physics implementation, not to mentionthe cunning dinosaur AI, Trespasser is easily one of the most anticipated titlesI've seen in years. To say it is years ahead of the competition in terms ofgameplay and graphics would be an understatement.With all of this in mind, I really didn't expect to see much difference in theTrespasser I saw a few weeks compared with the E3 Trespasser. Well, I was wrong.It's amazing how fast things change. When I last left Seamus at Dreamworks theywere struggling to incorporate 3D acceleration because of the sheer amount ofpolygons they were pushing across the screen. They promised it would beincorporated by the time the game ships in August, so it was with great surprisethat I saw Trespasser hauling the proverbial butt on a 3DFX card at their E3booth. Yes, 3D acceleration has been incorporated in just a few short weeks and,obviously, the effect is absolutely amazing. I asked Seamus point blank how theywere able to pull off this rather impressive feat in such a short amount of timeand the response was typically Seamus: "I'm not really sure. Lucky, I guess,"and then he laughed.

Seamus may be lucky, but the real lucks is now with the gamer. Any doubts thatTrespasser could potentially ship without 3DFX support can now go the way of thedinosaur. While many elements to the title are still being added, the one thatstuck out as being pretty inventive was the horseshoe game. Seamus was walkingalong a mountain side and stumbled upon a little horseshoe area, picked up thehorseshoe, and proceeded to toss it at a distant spike in the ground. This maynot sound like much, and yes, it has nothing to do with the game proper, butjust the fact that's it's there is good enough.

Be sure to read OGR's exclusive preview of this amazing looking title forfurther details. And stay tuned later today when we'll present to you the firstscreenshots of the 3DFX accelerated version. You won't want to miss it.

The first person shoot 'em up genre. When you ask any knowledgeable gamer about3D Shooters, you will probably get a response in terms of Doom. Alien worlds,one marine against the onslaught of evil monsters that threaten the Earth orsome remote military installation. And, in turn, when you ask somebody to thinkof a 3D Adventure game, you will probably receive a reply talking about TombRaider. Run around with your pistols and intimidate monsters with your hugebreasts. Alright, maybe not the latter, but you get the idea. Mix the two, addmore gameplay options than you can shake a stick at, rev it up with a physicsengine that would force your Trig and Calc. teachers to ponder, and what do youget? Trespasser, from DreamWorks.

Both Doom and Tomb Raider alike were huge hits, as well as milestones, for thecomputer gaming industry. Why? They offered the next level in gameplay as wellas a good sense of intuitiveness. However, in the past few months, or evenyears, 3D Shooters have been dry and lacking in a sense. Not to say that Quake 2sucks, but it uses the same basic gameplay formula that made Doom a hit - thesame weapons, virtually the same plot, and all in all is not a whole world apartfrom Doom. Yeah, Valve is working on Half-Life which should please story-goers,and Ritual with SiN's real-world levels that bring back memories of Duke Nukem3D. However, DreamWorks plans to take Trespasser to the next level - all whileleaving competitors in its virtual dust.

>Mind-blowing, Nut-Blazing, InterAction

Trespasser will be set up like any normal first person shooter. You progressfrom level to level, or in this case Region, to ultimately get off of thedinosaur-ridden island. To accomplish this goal, you need to fight, run, sneak,or do just about anything feasible to get off of the island. And this is wherethe real fun starts, and the game leaves the immutable FPS genre behind.

Two words can describe the heart and soul of this game - physics engine. If youcheck out any interview, preview, or even talk to the designers about the game,they will probably mention something about their physics engine. That is becauseit controls the entire world of Trespasser. And this isn't some lame attempt ata physics model, either. *Cough* *Cough* Quake *Cough* *Cough* This physicsmodel is the environment. It controls the world. Everything in the world, rightdown to the hinges on a door, is affected and influenced by the physics. That'swhat makes this game so cool_ and unpredictable.

For example, in an exclusive interview with Seamus Blackley, project lead onthe Trespasser team, he stated an instance when he killed himself. No, he didn'tfall into a pool of lava in some sky-high military base. No, he didn't pull thewrong lever and have a wall crush his arse. He was reaching for a rifle, but thesupports weren't steady and a crate fell on his head.

> "A lot of things you do seem simple but are really cool in a way gamers> haven't seen before. You finish a puzzle and its like you really solved> it yourself, you didn't just pull the lever and get the card, you really> DID something."

As I said before, this point is where the game stops being a traditional FPSand takes on a shape of its own. The game does not have any other humanopponents_ they are all dead. The game will have, however, things you can kill,such as dinosaurs (duh).

Right now your probably thinking this to be some sort of Tomb Raider knock off,except instead of running around ancient ruins and blasting wolves and bears,that you run around some third-rate, artificial-looking outside world blastingDino's with your guns. Well, not quite.

First off, if you find a gun - that's like discovering cold fusion. Youprobably wont be finding many guns in this game. And if you do, well, shooting aT-Rex with your pistol is like shooting a little kid with a water pistol. All hedoes is scream and run around and try and hurt you. Instead, you will bescrambling to find other means of defense, or if you will, offense. By this Imean you will be hoping to find some sticks or rocks to defend yourself - maybea 2x4 to whack a dino right in the eye. Where do you find this stuff? Well, whydon't you try pulling the leg off of a table, or hurling a chair.

If you are the clever gamer, and prefer using brains over brawn, then you couldtry other means of getting rid of prey that's on your trail. Why not try leadingthe pack of velociraptors into the T-Rex's nest, where the hunters will becomethe huntees. Or better yet, you could try prying that boulder loose on the hillwith a crow bar in hopes that it will roll right through a pack of angry dino's.It's all up to you, the player, to decide how you will get past your enemies.

I said it before and I'll say it again - the physics model and engine in thisgame totally rock. Each object you see can roll, tumble, or basically bemanipulated to your gain. Your character even creates a slight breeze as hewalks by, for plants sway in the direction you walk when you walk past them.What does this all add up to? Basically, this means that Trespasser will bereaching a new level of interactivity and realism, and it will put shame to anyother game claiming ultimate interactivity with the environment.

>This ain't yo daddies' FPS

With a first glance at Trespasser from random screenshots, it would probably becategorized as another FPS close with pretty graphics. However, after listeningto any excited fan, or anybody who has played the game for more than fiveminutes, you will soon come to discover that the game is much, much, more thanyour old, uninspired FPS game.

I want to say that Trespasser is a lot like an adventure game. Except, it's notlike your traditional animated, cartoon-esque adventure game. It's more likeTomb Raider, but you aren't running around confined to caves and battlingharmless animals. Trespasser is totally unique in almost every way.

One of the first things anybody would notice is that you aren't scurryingaround dark, abandoned military bases on some alien world. Nor are you runningaround pseudo-outside levels that look extremely fake and flat. Instead, thewhole world is practically outside in the wild. You may stumble upon anabandoned shack or some power station, but the vast majority of the game isoutside. This means that you won't be fumbling around in an outside world thatis based on the quake engine. This also means that you will be playing in aworld running off of an engine that was designed specifically for that world,and that world looks damn good - the best I have seen on the computer. Ever.

Another thing that you will notice while playing through Trespasser is that thepuzzles are way ahead of anything you have ever experienced in FPS's. Countlesstimes have I been frustrated with Quake 2 or other FPS games that require you tofind a key to get through a door to shut down some power grid (or some otherabstract objective). I'm standing in front of the door with my BFG, Rail Gun,Gattling Gun, etc_ but it still requires a key. So you go off through the leveland attempt to find the key laying around. Lets look at the same scenario inTrespasser. You must get into a shack to shut down the power so you can getacross the fence into the next region...

> So whatever should you do? You can...> A. Run away and look for the key on some fallen dinosaur> B. Wonder why no message pops up telling you what is going on when your> at the door>C. Smash the door open by allowing rocks on the hill in front of it to> roll through

If you selected C, congratulations, you're not an idiot. If you selected eitherA or B, go check out our feature on "Half-Life". Anyway, this is just oneexample of a way to get in. You could also smash the windows if there are any.Or you could try and break the door open with your feet or fists. Other puzzlesinclude building a raft to get down a river and making a natural ladder to getto some elevated location. Everything is dynamic and totally open to each andevery gamers' train of thought_ nothing is pre-scripted as to what must happen.The puzzles in Trespasser may seem logical, and that's exactly what's probablygoing to throw many gamers off. Up until now, the solutions to many adventuregames and FPS's have been extremely linear, and not so practical sometimes.However, in Trespasser, the simplest solution to a problem you encounter willprobably work. Or, if you're a clever gamer, the hardest solution to a problemwould probably work_ and it would probably be the most fun as well.

As said above, nothing is pre-scripted. And when I say nothing, guess what? Imean it. Not even the dinosaurs are pre-rendered. Of course, they did have tomake the models and AI for the dino's. However that's it. Gone are the days ofrepeated death scenes, models sliding around that don't have animations for thatparticular motion, or seeing the same animation twice. Instead, you will begranted with amazing animations that look frighteningly realistic... especiallyfor a computer game.

>Not some dumb cavemen

The AI in Trespasser promises to be realistic. Notice I did not sayrevolutionary, because it probably won't be revolutionary. Why? Well, first ofall, these are animals. Animals for the most part aren't very smart, and theyhave other motives than eating you. See that Triceratops? He has more importantthings to do, like eat some grass. However, those Raptors over there find youmuch more interesting than the grass.

But fear not, because you do have a brain. And in this world, that is what isreally going to count. You can manipulate the environment to suit your needs,like maybe jumping into a flowing river and watching the Raptors that were oncechasing you drown. You could also try leading the pack of raptors into theT-Rex's nest and hope that the T-Rex takes more interest in them than you.

The animals do have senses, and virtual feelings. They aren't waiting around insome cave or invisible region to come out and attack you from nowhere when youpull the wrong lever. *cough* *cough* Unreal *cough* *cough* They just want tolive, and have a superior sense of self-preservation, at least more than mostgames' AI.

It is even said that you can get through the game without killing a singledinosaur. If that is true, it will be interesting to see how Dreamworks pulls itoff. This also leaves room open for all sorts of players, from the Mystadventure lovers to the daring Quake fraggers. Then again, it could turn into aboring game of breaking stuff to get into places, but we will for sure find outwhen the final version is released.

>Graphics that could pimp Unreal

The last major advance in art for the PC was, obviously, 3D Acceleration andhardware support. Practically every new game coming out will have support forone form of 3D hardware or another, if not supporting it exclusively. This haspissed off quite a few gamers that still haven't upgraded to a Voodoo, Riva, orsome other card. And while you can now purchase a Voodoo card for the price ofan N64 game, Dreamworks plans on evening the score with Trespasser, which hasnot only superior graphics, but environments and ambience as well.

Do you see those screenshots of Trespasser? You're probably thinking "Man,Trespasser probably requires V2 SLI to run smoothly." Well, I got some news foryou. Those screenshots... are in software mode. Yes, that's correct, softwaremode looks exactly like accelerated mode - the only difference is thataccelerated mode will run faster and won't put as much load on the processor.

However, while the graphics in Trespasser are definitely impressive, it'sreally the environment that will, in my opinion, really capture the player.Until now, many outdoor environments have really sucked, because designers andproducers are always trying to trim down the polygon count to speed up the game.That always resulted in six-sided trees, repeated floor and sky textures, andextremely artificial looking foliage, rocks, and such. And although this hasbeen the status quo for years, DreamWorks will be breaking that barrier by goingall-out with the graphics and environment.

As you walk down a narrow path, you may notice that the sun is quite hot today.That's because you will see it washing out saturation, and casting mottledshadows on the ground. Each and every item in Trespasser has its place and canbe altered or moved. Another example of the visual effects in Trespasser occurswhen you come upon a log and turn it over. What do you find? Well, moss anddamp, flattened grass of course.

One of the many things that DreamWorks is boasting about is the Summit inTrespasser. You must make your way up a hill, and when you get to the top it'san awe-inspiring moment. Yeah, we all remember the famous waterfall in thesecond level of unreal, but that will look like Doom's waterfalls compared tothis one. As you gaze off into the distance, you can see approximately 5KM ofthe virtual island, and it looks fantastic. All of the trees, shrubbery, andfoliage look so damn awesome it's impossible to explain.

Another thing that you won't find either, will be those annoying tiledtextures. "We know that as soon as we use tons of tiled textures, an environmentbecomes boring. It's no longer interesting to explore because you've alreadyseen all the art that's used elsewhere. There is nothing more disturbing to theart staff than a wall, floor, or piece of ground texture that tiles intoeternity." What does that boil down to? Frankly, you won't be finding anytextures that repeat themselves, which will make each new area interesting andfun to explore. A prime example of this would be the fact that DreamWorks hasmultiple textures for the same type of dirt.

Here's something from the TresCom Miniboard, thanks to Google's cache:

Quote:

TresCom MiniBoardIndex > Articles from OGR

User: Message:machf 2004-10-15 00:57:56Well, with the Internet Archive back again (coincidentally, it started having trouble at more or less the same time as TresCom), I finally managed to retrieve their articles about Trespasser and merge the various parts into (why doesn't English have a word for "sendos", damn it?) .doc files, one for each. I've uploaded them to the FTP server at diehard, under the name "OGRarticles.zip". I want to comment on some parts of them:

From their first preview, by the end of Part 5:

"A little bit later into the demonstration we find ourselves approaching a Geo-Thermal plant which supplies power to the entire island. When the player reaches this location from within the game proper, the plant will have been shut completely down and it will be up to the player to juice up the systems again. Don't expect it to be a process of simply finding some obscure lever somewhere and flipping it up. Nothing about Trespasser is quite that easy. Getting inside the plant itself will take some time, and there are a myriad of ways in which the player could go about it (I don't want to spoil anything). The Geo-Thermal complex is vast with many different parts that comprise the overall whole."

"As the player approaches each segment of the structure, chances are you'll hear the voice of Hammond briefly describing what this or that part accomplishes. It is in this way that the player will get subtle clues to help them out (the player hears these occasional clues because at some point early in the game, you read through Hammond's journal and notes of interest come flooding back to you.) Better yet is the fact that you'll need the clues, for as Rich Flier explains, "We actually did research on geo-thermal plants so it works properly and as it should." Why doesn't that surprise me?"

Then continues in Part 6:

"As Seamus strolls around the geo-thermal plant he comes across a garage door. Instead of just standing there and opening it like most games would find you doing, Trespasser has you kneeling over, grabbing the handle, taking a few steps back while hoisting the door up. It's as real as you can possibly get."

"There will be four major environments (comprising about 11 levels of play, each level taking anywhere from 2-5 hours to complete if you know exactly what you're doing) for the player to explore in Trespasser; Pine Valley, a jungle area, plains, and finally a mountainous region, all handcrafted for your exploratory pleasure. Once each of these expansive regions have loaded into the system, there will be no more loading through the course of the adventure. What that means is, the transition from exterior to interior - from walking through a thicket of trees to navigating the inside of a control room - is all present all the time, seamlessly integrated without any waiting around for a scene to load."

"Rich Flier and Seamus run through a truckload of more locations and while I could describe each and every one, offer you the nature of just a handful of the available puzzles, I won't. Trespasser is all about exploration and curiosity, and any further divulgence of the game-world itself would just spoil the fun that's coming."

Next, on Part 7:

"Yet one more interesting tidbit in relation to Trespasser is how the inventory has been implemented. Or lack thereof, I should say. Unlike most adventure/quest/explore/puzzle type games that find most players lugging around literally tons of inventory, Trespasser will have none of that. Instead, you have two hands...and that's it. So, if you find yourself carrying a Mac-10 and you come up to a broken bridge that can be crossed by placing a beam in a certain spot, you'll have to drop the gun, manipulate the beam, get the gun, and cross. "Or the player could opt to throw the gun across the chasm, but that's a nervous throw. If you miss you're f'ed, and that's how it would be in the real world," explains Seamus."

And at the end of the preview, there's an interesting image described:

"[Picture: This shot represents just one small arm of the Geo-Thermal plant.]"machf 2004-10-15 01:01:23On their second preview ("Trespasser revisited"), by the end of Part 3:

"Case in point: I walking up to a construction area where a crane and a few trailers are sitting on bricks around a cleared area. I move into one of the trailers and start snooping around when suddenly the trailer starts leaning to one side. Before I know it, the trailer is rolling over, sending all interior objects flying. When I finally make it outside the trailer I'm greeted by a rather irate T-Rex that is gazing at me as if I just morphed into a cartoon chicken leg. I do what any reasonable individual would do in a situation such as this, i.e., run. The T-Rex tosses trailers to the side as if they're made out of balsa wood., creating a visual reality that just leaves you stunned, especially with the trailer continuing to roll and lumber down a steep hill while a T-Rex screams come from behind.

The above pictures illustrate the "moment". The trailer is rolling down the hill with amazing realism."

I wonder if that "construction area" is actually the docks in the Lab level...

machf 2004-10-15 01:11:34This is from their review of a "silver master" (pre-release, or pre-"gold", I guess?).At the end of Part 1:

"For example: there's a bridge with it's supports broken so that it flops like a teeter-totter, and you can't quite get on top of it. You need to cross this bridge to proceed, so how do you do it? In these types of situations, Trespasser shines in a way no other game has be fore. There is never a single solution to any of these puzzles, or even a set of solutions. Rather, you just do whatever works, whatever makes sense, and if you succeed, great. Pretty much anything that makes sense in the Real World will work, and there's really no such thing as cheating or "getting around" a puzzle - that's part of the point. In the example above, you could drag a plank onto the box under the bridge to support it and keep it from lowering when you walk on that side. Or, you could weigh one side down by throwing a couple of rocks on it, then run across and jump to the other side. Maybe you could stack some boxes and jump up them like a staircase to avoid using the bridge entirely."

This seems to imply the bridge we see on the Beach level, as I suggested, may have been elsewhere, very likely in Pine Valley, and it was actually only the second half of a bigger bridge.

Also, compare that to the last part of the first preview, where they mention "placing a beam on a certain spot" in order to cross a broken bridge... and that article was clearly talking about the Geothermal Plant level.Second Illiteration 2004-10-16 02:55:00that second one seems to be refering to the docks area...made it sound cool...with the rex tipping your trailer and then chasing youSlugger 2004-10-16 04:49:45Isn't there a screenshot of the second one somewhere? It has the trailer without the door kinda rolling.

Seems like they moved the Rex, if it was at the docks, or else they taunted it.

Could Pine Valley had had a construction yard -- as if they were still building the island when the storm hit?Second Illiteration 2004-10-16 06:37:14that makes sense....it seems to me that there would probably be some time of continual construction going on at site b at all times...there seems to be a lot of things missing that an island like that might need...

like a hospital...garages for vehicle repair...those types of thingsmachf 2004-10-16 09:05:55Yes, there is a screenshot that looks like it is from that one (though the T-Rex can't be seen) and another one (or maybe two) that shows the trailer in its original location, which isn'too far from where the T-Rex in in the actual game (it's just to the other side of the building, basically).Post Reply

interesting. 11 levels. they also state quite a few puzzles that wernt in the retail. I bet if we had a picture of the clay model of the island it would answer a lot of questions. the levels were probably totally different.

_________________Hammond: When they opened Disneyland in 1956, nothing worked!

Ian: Yeah, but when Pirates of the Caribbean breaks down, the pirates don't eat the tourists...

<Rapala> *BloodFire* question:If you visit a lavatory in Trespasser, will a T-Rex rip off the top and kill you?<Bakshra> heh...<DreamWork> That certianly *could* happen; the engine would certianly do it. I don't know if we have a bathroom in an exposed enough place. The game is *big*

So, obviously you can prerender scenes, aside from the Key-Frame, as it probably includes the dinos.

In another article, they mention lifting up a T-rex with a cursor, then dropping it down and watching it react in realtime. Could this be something related to that "GUIInterface" program? I wonder who we could contact to get our hands on that...

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